Skins Party


Youth is represented via many means throughout this clip. It is however always attempting to portray it in the same light or way. This being that youths are wild, drunk, and high on drugs when at parties.Firstly, this is portrayed through the cinematography throughout. The first point I have is that the lights throughout the clip are flashing constantly, at different tempos in accordance to the music. As beat of the music hastens, so does the flashing of the lights. While this is going on, the characters are dancing frantically, and just generally going mad – much like the music and the lights. Another point is that there are lots of close ups on the characters, and on the main one in particular. These close-ups show clearly the state that these characters are assumed to be in – EXTREMELY drunk. This is shown by facial expressions such as rolling eyes, wide mouths etc. The close up on the main character is particularly important. This is because it shows him at the beginning of the night looking normal, and each close-up afterwards he gradually becomes increasingly more drunk. Another camera shot which was the most commonly used, was the group shot. This was used pretty much the whole way through, and showed them all having fun and dancing together. This shot was used to show that they are all good friends, and are having lots of fun in each others company, which could not be shown if each character was portrayed separately.

The second way that youth is portrayed is through the “mise en scene”. Firstly, the types of clothes the characters are wearing are used to show what types of personalities they have. In this clip, it shows them all wearing very bright and / or crazy clothing, e.g. bright red jeans, long fur jackets, pink sun glasses etc. This shows that they are all there for a “wild” time, and this shows later on in the clip when they go crazy via dancing, and drinking madly. There clothes are also clear representations of the intentions they have, this is because as the clip goes on, they slowly seem to have less and less items of clothing on. Lastly, at the end of the night, the people at the party are all being sick and falling asleep, this represents youths in a bad way, suggesting that they don’t know how to control themselves, and that they are ruining the night.

Another crucial point that helps to represent the youth in this clip is the sound. Throughout the clip there is loud dance music playing, and as the night goes on, the music speeds up, and with this the different clips of the characters dancing and jumping around speed up in time with the music. They begin to flash quicker and quicker as the night becomes more frantic, until right at the end, the music slows down completely, and everyone is being sick and falling asleep. Lastly, editing is used throughout the clip to represent youth in a certain way. The first point for this is that there are lots of camera shots in a short amount of time, as they flash from one picture to the next very quickly. This could be being used to show that the youths being represented are very jumpy, and seem to be going a bit “crazy”. Another piece of editing which is used to great effect during this clip is that in certain parts of the video, the camera angle is tilted, and towards the end begins to go in and out of focus. This is used to show the state that the youths are supposed to be in – Drunk. The fact that it is tilted and in and out focus, gives the impression that as the watcher you are there with the characters, and experiencing the same things that they are.

In conclusion, in this skins episode, youths are portrayed in an almost dark light, and in a bad way. This is because they are all shown to be out of control, doing drugs, and getting drunk. This is therefore living up to the expectations which many older people believe to be true of all youths at that age.

It's not very clear but i'm actually pretty pleased :)


By the way, i forgot to mention that we were using Final Cut Express to edit our video's, and it was really quite sound. Although we suffered difficulties at the beginning, once we got the hang of it, it is actually a very user friendly package, which enabled myself and the rest of the group to easyily edit our film's.

This my preliminary task finished.

It's Been a While.

For the past three weeks in Mr V's lessons we have been working on our first piece of filiming and editing.

In the short film's we had to include certain aspects - Close Up, Extreme Close Up, Walking Room, Over the Shoulder Shot. We also had to include and establishing shot, and short form of dialogue.

On thursday I finally finished my continuity project, and I am pleased with result. We have also drawn storyboards depicting how we were intending to carry out our project, and from angles we wished to film from etc.

Tonight I will be attempting to post my storyboard onto my next blog, if i can figure out how to work my scanner. From that you will be able to see what an amazing ARTIST I am :)...